Wow. Loads of information. Had no idea about the engine issues. Will keep reading and researching. Almost bought a 2011 with 100k miles but didn't love the color so walked out of the dealership. Salesman called 2 min later and wanted to lower the price. Always smart to be willing to walk away and wa...

Dear BH, I've read countless posts about honda odysseys on this forum. I know the resale value is high and thus makes buying used less of a value compared to other vehicles. My question is, do you think there is a point of optimum value buying a used van. I'm thinking of buying a 3-6 yo Odyssey with...

Dear BH, Father of a 3 yo and 1 yo. Trying to save money for children's college education. I understand benefits of tax advantaged saving in 529. My question is this, has anyone taken the approach to save money in a high yield saving account or bonds fund and not tell their kids they had a college f...

Dear Bogleheads, About to start interviewing for private practice GI jobs. Looking for any advice/wisdom, Important interview questions I should ask. Any GI docs, or specialists out there with any input would be greatly appreciated! Here are some questions/topics in no particular order I plan on add...

Dear Bogleheads, I am a first year fellow in a subspecialty. Looking for career advice. Any advice or experience regarding the following would be helpful. 1. Joining a multispecialty clinic vs specialty specific group vs hospital employed position? 2. Would a BogleHead be completely opposed to taki...

There is a lot of good advice here from experienced physicians. I will give you my take: I have been in practice as a surgical subspecialist for 20 years. I went to an extremely underserved (but rapidly growing) area when I came out of residency. It was an excellent opportunity to make a lot of mon...

You used the plural, "Specialists". Do you have multiple fellowships in different specialties or is there more than one of you? In my field (anesthesiology), the best method of financial success is being willing to live in some undesirable part of the country. But, those places are undesi...

Dear Bogleheads, I am a first year fellow in a subspecialty. Looking for career advice. Any advice or experience regarding the following would be helpful. 1. Joining a multispecialty clinic vs specialty specific group vs hospital employed position? 2. Would a BogleHead be completely opposed to taki...

get a position in a VA Medical Center. the specialists don't do primary care. You will have a pension and benefits and can contribute to the TSP, best 401K in the country. Do you work for the VAMC? Any VA employees out there can comment? My limited observation has been significantly less compensati...

Dear Bogleheads, I am a first year fellow in a subspecialty. Looking for career advice. Any advice or experience regarding the following would be helpful. 1. Joining a multispecialty clinic vs specialty specific group vs hospital employed position? 2. Would a BogleHead be completely opposed to takin...

Dear Bogleheads, I have a TLH question. If I sell VTIAX for a loss in a taxable account and exchange it for a not identical fund such as vanguard international explorer fund (VINEX), but buy Vanguard Target Date retirement fund (contains some vanguard international index fund) at the end of the mont...

So I've read that one of the drawbacks of the vanguard solo 401k is that there is some problem with the backdoor Roth IRA. We opened an individual 401k with vanguard 2 years ago. Will need to start utilizing the backdoor roth in 3 years. What is the specific issue with this? Is it impossible? Does i...

Dear Bogleheads, Anyone have experience in real estate or buying a home from a trust? We've sold our house and have agreed on a price with a trust officer on the new home. We were told it has to go before a judge to approve the sale. Their is one heir who wants to buy th home to flip it. The other h...

Quick question. I'm selling my home and will be making some profit. My question is will this affect my modified adjusted gross income and thus Roth eligibility? I went to the IRS http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc701.html and it appears there is some tax break associated with selling a home. Thanks Bog...

+1 for foods of NY tours I've found food tours are a great way to learn a city. You normally walk a couple miles, stop and eat at 6 different places and learn about individual neighborhoods and how they impacted the food industry. We always do them on day 1 of our trips so that we will know where we...

I'm not sure you can do that. Normally dividends/CG are reinvested in the same fund or goes to cash. In a Vanguard mutual fund account you can certainly direct dividends to be invested in another fund. I don't think it makes much sense to send fund A dividends to fund B and vice-versa though. A bet...

Bogleheads, [list] Random question. Supposed one held equal amounts of total international stock and total us stock in a ROTH IRA. Would it make sense to reinvest dividends from International into US and dividends from US into international? This way, one might be buying low if US was kicking off mo...

[/quote] She personally delivers the independent contractor services in MS, she is subject to MS state income tax. She must pay estimated taxes in MS and file a MS return. Unfortunately, in this case TN has no state income tax on earned income, so it all goes to MS. You really should have been aware...

Bogelheads, My wife is an optometrist and works as an independent contractor for an ophthalmologist. The main business operation is in Memphis, TN but she works at two satellite clinics just across the state line in MS. All billing and financial issues come out of Memphis. My question is, as an inde...

Thanks Spirit Rider. Thinking about closing for simplicity. Fewer accounts to manage and rebalance. Plus vanguard's individual 401k sight is lacking to say the least. But good thought. Maybe I should just leave it alone. However I might like to rollover to a Roth for inheritance purposes down the ro...

My wife has been an independent contractor (optometry) and she has been contributing to an individual (solo) 401k with both pretax and Roth contributions. She was offered a job to become a full time employee in the next few months. My question is how should she close her individual 401k? She already...

I find it interesting that finance is completely different than most of life. For example, if you want to get ahead in business, the more research you do, polls, surveys, people you meet and time you put into it, the more successful business you may have. It seems like in personal investing, the mo...

I find it interesting that finance is completely different than most of life. For example, if you want to get ahead in business, the more research you do, polls, surveys, people you meet and time you put into it, the more successful business you may have. It seems like in personal investing, the mor...

Hey All, Planning a week of vacation for me and the Mrs. in June. Mrs. IndexBeliever would like to go somewhere with a beach. I would love to have our own private pool. But in order of priorities, a nice beach is probably at the top. We did Cancun before and it was nice and close. I went to the gran...

Will holding an actively managed fund like Wellington (vwenx) In a taxable account not further increase taxable gains in the future? Let me rephrase, why would one hold an actively managed fund in a taxable account for decades? Is the hope that in retirement that one is in 15% federal tax bracket an...

yes, Target 2060 is probably a great choice for you. There are at least 3 principles to investment success. 1. You can't control the markets, you can only control how much you pay to be in the markets -A vanguard target date fund is a great, very low cost way to have a broadly diversified exposure 2...

Thanks all. In 25% federal tax bracket and no state income tax The VWENX makes up ~40% of the portfolio and was an inheritance. All future money going into index funds. Trying to simplify things but keeping it means pouring some into small and mid caps to balance it out. 10 years from now I would li...

I spoke with vanguard personal advisors. Wanted to reduce my actively managed funds and move to a more indexed diversified portfolio. Currently 40% of my taxable account is in Wellington (VWENX) with ~30k of unrealized capital gains. Vanguard recommended not touching VWENX because of the capital gai...

I use target date funds in my 401k because it is the best option for access to low cost index funds given my employer options. I'm in favor of the glide path for a couple reasons. 1. Takes away the individual desire/tendency to market time. Probably tough to sell stocks and shift to bonds in the mid...

I bought VGENX at it's peak ~$73/share. My thought was energy will always to be a great sector! Within 6 months I had lost 40% ! Luckily it was only ~1.3% of my portfolio but a VALUABLE lesson. I was able to tax loss harvest, so not a total loss.

Great question. I have limited insight as we opened a solo 401k for my wife at Vanguard ~ 3 months ago. Pros 1. We already had everything at vanguard and for simplicity sake, we wanted to keep the solo 401k there as well 2. Vanguard has pretty dirt cheap ERs. Can only get investor shares in the 401k...

Dear Bogleheads, My wife opened up an individual 401k at vanguard a few months ago. We were hoping to dollar cost average throughout the year rather than just make a lump sum payment at the end of the calendar year. We emailed our vanguard rep and the response was AIP (automatic investment payments)...

Dear Bogelheads, Love the forum. Much thanks to all of you who contribute. Question 1. How do taxes work in a traditional 401k? I know the investments grow tax deferred. My question is do you have to keep up with any transactions over 30 years? Lets say you rebalance yearly within the traditional 40...

Great point retiredjg. I think I have been confused. Will be in a higher tax bracket at retirement, probably not during. I do have a Roth 401k and 457b at work so I feel that I get some tax diversification. Thanks all for your wisdom.

[quote="livesoft"]What is your marginal income tax bracket? Why are you using a Roth 401(k)? Currently 25% (married filing jointly). Using Roth 401k because salary will increase in 3-4 years and expect to be in higher bracket at retirement. Thanks for the insight about the taxes this year....